College of Fine Arts and Production

Before seniors Morgan McCall, Ryan Ardelt and Alex Cavanaugh walk the Commencement stage later this month, the trio of friends had one more project up their sleeves. What started as an original submission to a 24-hour playwriting festival was adapted to an audio broadcast performance scheduled to premiere at 7 p.m. today. “It feels like coming home,” said McCall, the director. “It’s all amounted to this. All of us have worked really hard in this program, and our friendship has led up to this moment and all of our skills have led up to this moment.”

There were innovations aplenty as GCU dealt with the pandemic. But none of the required alterations were more visible than the cutouts in GCU Arena, where the basketball environment still was plenty loud enough to be noticed by visiting coaches. Reprinted from the February issue of GCU Magazine.

It’s been a year full of pushing limits, and that’s what will be portrayed Friday through Sunday, March 26-28, at the “Beyond Limits” Spring Faculty Dance Concert. The performance will showcase seven live pieces and five films and can be viewed via livestream. “With all of the challenges that this pandemic has thrown at our students and everyone in this world, this show is really about finding ways to transcend the limits and finding ways to move forward and grow despite all of these limitations that we’ve had,” Dance Director Bekki Price said.

The GCU Theatre Department had another big year at the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival. Brandon Brown and Abby Yee made it to the finals of the Irene Ryan Acting Competition, and Morgan McCall was offered a $1,500 scholarship to the California Institute of the Arts program. “I really focus on the feedback that they get at this level of performance more than if they get trophies,” Acting instructor Michael Kary said. “We have been doing better and better. I think that our school has grown in reputation because of its presence at the festival over the last few years.”

It’s a tale of truth, hypocrisy and humor. It’s Molière’s “The Misanthrope.” As Ethington Theatre wraps up another memorable season, audiences are afforded one last opportunity for the 2020-21 academic year to experience COFAP’s “Theatre under the Stars” with a modernized rendition of the classic comedy. “It doesn’t take long to fall in love with the story and figure out how all of these crazy characters are going to get out of the messes that they’ve made,” said Assistant Director Tyler Sorrels. “I think this really encapsulates the end of our season.”

Adjunct clarinet professor Tim Haas and former GCU oboe professor Dr. Rachel Messing were selected to perform at the 2020 Clarinet Fest before it was canceled because of the pandemic. But they’re scheduled to perform this summer at the 2021 conference. “It’s a huge honor,” Haas said. “These conferences, they have some of the best players in the world coming to play.”

Students in GCU’s Dance Department hear some of the success stories that have come out of the program, and last week they got to work with one of those people. Richelle “Ricki” Stevenson, who graduated in 2015, is now with Ekklesia Contemporary Ballet and came to campus for a residency. “There’s just such strength and talent in this program, it makes me very excited to be an alumni and also very excited about coming back now,” she said.

When Michael Burnett lost his mother in 2019 to breast cancer, he had no idea the full extent to which her teachings and wisdom would shape his life. Her inspiration was the impetus for the podcaster/filmmaker’s recent Bronze Award at the 2020 Spotlight Documentary Film Awards Festival in Atlanta. Burnett’s documentary showcased the journey of his podcast and also paid tribute to his mother.

Ethington Theatre’s production of Shakespeare’s “Henry V” features epic sword fighting, stunning costumes and a tale of a king’s growth as a person. The play, which opens tonight, also contains an important message that is just as relevant today as it was when the show was written in 1599. “I think what people can take away is some hope for what a leader of a country can be like,” director Michael Kary said. “A leader that’s inspiring, a leader that wrestles with ethical issues, and the one thing that stuck out to me in this production is how often he turns to God throughout for his decision-making and giving God glory for whatever victories he has.”

Dr. Rachel Velarde made her return to singing last weekend at the Cal-Western Regional Conference of the National Association of Teachers of Singing. In her recorded performance, Velarde highlighted the classical music of several diverse women. “This is a women’s composer recital and deliberately programmed with people of color and also very contemporary music,” she said.